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Key passages
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- 1:52
I remember seeing that one time in Scotland in a paddock. Two huge bulls locked horns, literally, and neither would move. They're completely kind of paralyzed. It looked like a sculpture almost.
- 25:26
My teacher, because what I think, he's my teacher and I think he's the best, that he is absolutely the best. It is all caught up with the self-view and assumptions that are conditioned into the mind before we are really awakened or aware of our own mind and how it is conditioned.
- 38:04
Even the most senior, Monk, how advanced he might be or how wise or respected or adored that monk might be, he has no right to ask anyone to commit an immoral act. And if he does, then our duty is to say, you have no right to ask me to do that.
- 40:41
Within the prescriptions of the restraint of our form. And this is done not just through blind conformity and it can't be done through, it doesn't work if you're just blindly conforming or suppressing your feelings, but it's a deliberate use of restraint in order to see those outgoing impulses, the impulsivity.
- 54:16
But also I see religions, many of the other religions now are sometimes very confused because it's so easy to be intimidated by modern values and try to kind of Not have the confidence to use a tradition, but to try to adapt it and change it to please everyone, make it what everyone, what you think everyone wants.
Transcript
0:00 ...here to Amaravati this afternoon, and this is the first in the Summer Sunday Talks, Tradition and the Contemporary World, a chance to reflect upon the meaning of tradition and its function and how it can be applied to modern life. I think this, for many of us, is something that We need to think about more deeply because sometimes modern attitudes are such that tradition is aligned with kind of an archaic conservatism or something that is stuck in just kind of perfunctory ceremonies and rituals, attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
1:02 Tradition can oftentimes have a pejorative Meaning, Report an error in the passage at 1:02
1:11 contemporary world, we realized even more so in this past year, the kind of stability that we had during the so-called Cold War no longer exists. When you kind of have a stalemate or two bowls locking horns, there's a kind of At least for a time, there's a sense of stability just through inability to move. And if you've ever seen two bulls locked horns, you can understand what that means. Report an error in the passage at 1:11
1:52 I remember seeing that one time in Scotland in a paddock. Two huge bulls locked horns, literally, and neither would move. They're completely kind of paralyzed. It looked like a sculpture almost. And they said that there's no way you could unlock them, that one would have to stay that way until one would drop dead or faint or something. Report an error in the passage at 1:52
2:22 And so this was a fairly good simile for the superpower Cold War of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, the past 40, 50 years. Report an error in the passage at 2:22
2:41 Now that sense of stability is... is not present. We don't know what's going to happen. We see all kinds of unresolved things arising in the world, ethnic attitudes and grudges and vendettas and prejudices and all of these kind of human emotions and feelings. I'm now no longer suppressed when you have a very strong oppressive system and you're locked in a kind of very simple way, one against the other. Report an error in the passage at 2:41
3:29 Other things in our human existence are usually dismissed or not addressed, not given a chance to even have any significance in our lives. When that oppression or that is taken away, then of course all the resentments, the bitterness, the unresolved problems arise into consciousness. This is an age now where everybody wants to claim their rights and have their own way. You can see in many ways it's a time for selfishness, to think of yourself, your own group. Report an error in the passage at 3:29
4:15 But it's also a time where human consciousness can also expand and mature into a much more grand view and way of perceiving oneself in the universe that one lives in. Report an error in the passage at 4:15
4:33 But of course we need to be very patient with the world, with ourselves, with the way things are and to want to then have a Having all the problems solved, everything kind of calmed down and everybody behaving themselves, of course, is a kind of desire that we know we will never realize in our lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 4:33
5:02 But we can at least learn from the existing conditions and the contemporary world. And the tradition, of course, is a very helpful tool. Report an error in the passage at 5:02
5:16 Myself coming from a society that thinks of itself as not having traditions. Here in Europe, of course, there is a stronger sense of cultural continuity and tradition because European societies have evolved through several levels of experience from, say, tribalism to feudalism to... Nationalism, and now it's into an economic, a Euro market type attitude, which to me shows an advancement in human consciousness, where European people are now including all Europeans as a possible part of one's equal kind of status. Report an error in the passage at 5:16
6:15 The old kind of rigid attitudes of being English or French or German that tended to be very divisive and very isolating to people, they're no longer practical, no longer useful in the way they were in previous times. Report an error in the passage at 6:15
6:42 And this, of course, is extending to the whole world in general. Just the terms of like third world countries as if they were somehow different from the rest of say the first and second world countries. If there's a second world left then Report an error in the passage at 6:42
7:08 the idea of Asians and Europeans or Africans things like this no longer we can no longer Report an error in the passage at 7:08
7:28 important they different because the world is such that we're now sharing a planet together and how we live on it does affect everyone. Report an error in the passage at 7:28
7:41 they do in India or Brazil is not isolated that they're just the people in those local areas or what happens in or in... Or in England or the United States. We all realize an increasing sense of dependency and relatedness to everything on this planet. And to me that was very much emphasized when I was in Thailand years ago when the Americans landed on the moon and they sent the picture of the photograph of the earth. Report an error in the passage at 7:41
8:24 And that was a magnificent photograph, in fact, and that seemed to signify that there was a sense of we're being kind of on planetary, we're one family, one kind of planetary family here. And somehow there were no boundaries, were there? You couldn't see the boundary like you can on a map between Germany and France. Report an error in the passage at 8:24
8:55 India and Pakistan or any of these other significant boundaries that we fight over and slaughter each other for just had no, there was no reality and it's in the head of a human being. It's maybe drawn out on a map and emphasized that the color pink is all British and the color blue is, or the color green is French or whatever, but But those are the human attitudes, the way we tend to create a false sense of reality through our belief and attachments to these perceptions, national ethnic identities. Report an error in the passage at 8:55
9:45 And yet these also have to be respected to say we should all give up our ethnic or national identity, this kind of... Throw it all away and become kind of one amorphous bland clone of some kind of ideal human being is not the way either. We realize it's not a matter of everybody putting on the same uniform and speaking the same language and everybody memorizing the party line, everybody belonging to the same religion and everybody conforming to one One tradition, that to think in those terms would be oppressive, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 9:45
10:32 If we tried to make that happen, whenever we try to make that happen, it becomes another form of tyranny, like the communist system tended to want to do that to the countries that they ruled, trying to make them all kind of homogenous, one type, one thing. And even though their intention might have been very good to allay the emphasis on differences and on difference in religion or race or ethnic background or class or any of these things that tend to emphasize differences and cause a sense of separation or jealousy, Report an error in the passage at 10:32
11:20 Yet by just annihilating them, forbidding them, outlawing them, punishing anyone who tries to make a stand for these particular traditions or separate conditions, then of course we feel oppressed. Because we also need to be individual. We also need to... To recognize our own uniqueness as individual human beings and that also relates to our national identities, ethnic backgrounds, religious preferences and so on. Report an error in the passage at 11:20
12:02 There's room for the whole lot actually. It's not like one is right and the other is wrong or that one is better than the other. Report an error in the passage at 12:02
12:15 That there's infinite variety on this conditioned plane and that's the way it is and that's the way it will always be. And that there's nothing wrong with that or nothing, and there's no need to try to change that, but the aim is to understand it, to put it in a perspective in which we can use our conventions, our forms, our traditions that Report an error in the passage at 12:15
12:44 affect our lives or that we prefer or we like or we have strong affinities with, how we can still respect and these kind of conditions, without them our conscious experience or causing a sense of separation, alienation, or a sense of looking down on someone who is, say, in a different form, a different tradition. Report an error in the passage at 12:44
13:15 the conditioning of the mind easily goes towards preferring one thing over another. When you're not mindful or aware of doubt, Dhamma, or the way things are, when you've not really reflected upon life, you've merely been conditioned by a culture or by a religion, by some traditional form, then one is usually assuming that what one has is somehow qualitatively better than the rest. Report an error in the passage at 13:15
13:49 And, I mean, just to think that one's own country is the best country is not an uncommon I mean, myself being born and raised in America, in the United States, it's part of the culture. It's part of the whole national outlook to assume that the United States is the best country in the whole world. And that's part of what you, I mean, from you hear that, and that's the assumptions you get in from your parents, from your relatives, from... Report an error in the passage at 13:49
14:28 Your school teachers, that's the assumptions that Americans make, that it's the biggest, best country, stands for freedom and equality and individual rights, and it's the most wonderful place. And everyone else on the planet wants to go and live in the United States because every other country is oppressed with some form of class. Report an error in the passage at 14:28
14:58 problems, caste problems, various oppressive political systems, and it's only in the United States that you have any real freedom and opportunity. That was the illusion, say, of my generation. Report an error in the passage at 14:58
15:14 Of course, when you get to a certain age, you don't believe it anymore, and I was always a bit of a rebel anyway, so at a fairly young age, I determined that I didn't like to think like that, and so I became very sympathetic with foreigners. And I remember I went from Seattle, and Seattle in those days, American sport was baseball, and we'd all go to the baseball games, and the Seattle baseball team was always the loser. Report an error in the passage at 15:14
15:48 In those days, it was a terrible baseball team, never could win anything. And so all the boys I'd go to baseball games with would be cheering and rooting for... The Seattle Rainiers. And I would deliberately cheer for the opposite team. Of course, I used to get beat up now and then for that. Report an error in the passage at 15:48
16:20 But one thing in the state, there is room for rebels and things. So, I mean, it wasn't, one wasn't kind of, I mean, the natural kind of frustration, exasperation of people, of boys who... ...who strongly believe their emotions about that Seattle needs to be supported and wants to have a winning baseball team. To me, I didn't care. Report an error in the passage at 16:20
16:46 And I found great delight in cheering for the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 16:46
17:00 The idea that one's religion is also somehow superior to another. And I was brought up in the American Episcopal Church, which is the... Anglican church in America, in the United States. And we belonged to, in Seattle there was only one Anglo-Catholic church. It was very high and crazy kind of Anglican, Anglo-Catholic church. And my parents were very devout. And it was a very exclusive church. Report an error in the passage at 17:00
17:34 And we felt very kind of supercilious about ourselves and better. We felt that we were vastly superior to the kind of moderate and low churches. of the Episcopal in Seattle, not to mention utter contempt for anything like Baptists or Presbyterians. Report an error in the passage at 17:34
17:54 And so there is a sense that somehow when we all went to heaven and met God, that somehow the Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians would have front row center seats. You'd find the Baptists maybe off in the galleries way in the back. Report an error in the passage at 17:54
18:15 But these were assumptions, attitudes, maybe not stated outright as such, but yet the cultural conditioning is such that you tend to prefer your own and somehow support it as superior. Now, also the conditioning was that everyone's equal. And so there was also an attempt culturally to proclaim equality and tolerance. Report an error in the passage at 18:15
18:44 And that's an ideal, and that's what one would like to kind of feel at certain moments of one's life, but also there's the other, the kind of feeling that one's group that you identify with is better than the rest. So this notice in your own experience of life, this sense of just Thinking in terms of one thing being better than another or worse than another because this is a function of our human mind to compare and then to absolute times that somehow my country, my religion is absolutely better all the time than the rest because the thinking process tends to make things sound solid and concrete. Report an error in the passage at 18:44
19:43 And very permanent and absolute. When we realize that on the condition plane things are better and worse in relative ways, isn't it? Certainly those are adequate ways of describing conditions or institutions or relative situations. In moments, one thing might be better than another at this particular time or this particular place. Report an error in the passage at 19:43
20:18 But then the snobbery and the rigidity of attitude comes from assuming that it is permanently that way, that one's country is absolutely the best and better than any other country all the time under all conditions. All places. And of course when you take it to that, when you really think it out, it's absurd, isn't it? It's ridiculous. It's foolish. Report an error in the passage at 20:18
20:48 And yet, how many of you really take your assumptions to that point of where they become ridiculous? We have a lot of the things we assume about ourselves or about other people or about our own group or country or religion. It's not that it's wrong. It's not absolutely wrong. But it's not absolutely right either. And that these things are relative to time and place. Report an error in the passage at 20:48
21:20 So when people ask me, why did I choose Theravāda Buddhism? Do I think it's the best of the Buddhist possibilities? Do I think it's better than Zen? Report an error in the passage at 21:20
21:35 People ask me this question sometimes. Or do I think that Theravāda is better than the Mahāyāna school? Because I obviously had a choice. I wasn't born into Theravadan family. It wasn't an inheritance from my ancestral background. Report an error in the passage at 21:35
21:57 Free to choose from the whole range, whole spectrum of Buddhist possibilities or all religious possibilities. I could just pick and choose anyone, prefer anything that attracted or that I wanted. I could choose that. There was no kind of coercion in my life to choose Theravāda Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 21:57
22:21 But it was more or less I became Theravadan Buddhist because of circumstances. Because things, I found myself living in Southeast Asia and in Thailand and feeling Great attraction and interest and love for Thailand and then thinking, well, I wouldn't mind studying Buddhism in this country and since the really only available type of Buddhism in Thailand is Theravāda, then I decided, well, I'll study Theravāda. Report an error in the passage at 22:21
22:54 It wasn't because there was a belief that it was somehow better than Mahāyāna. But then I noticed as I developed my life, And I began to really appreciate Theravāda Buddhism and began to have insights and good results from my practice. Then it was also easy to assume that somehow Theravāda is a better form than, and is the best form or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 22:54
23:28 I could see in my mind a tendency, a habit tendency. To identify very strongly with Theravāda Buddhism and by doing so making the assumption that it's somehow better than Zen or Mahāyāna or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 23:28
23:44 But in the practice of Buddhist meditation you're reflecting on this. You're noticing that any opinion you have might be relatively true. Maybe in some ways or some moments or some aspects are better than some other, but as an absolute, doesn't ring true. Report an error in the passage at 23:44
24:16 when I became a Theravadan Buddhist and attached to it, there was always a level of suffering Report an error in the passage at 24:16
24:25 sense of being threatened by other forms of Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 24:25
24:33 Ajahn Chah in Thailand. I had great respect, enormous respect for Lungpho Cha. He was an excellent teacher and his monastery was a very excellent monastery to live in. So one tended to be carried away by adulation and by the kind of thinking that this is really the best monastery in the world or that our teacher... Report an error in the passage at 24:33
25:04 Ajahn Sumedho is the best teacher in Thailand. I could see how easy it was to be caught up into that way of thinking because I loved Ajahn Chah very much and I have great respect and with all that goes along a tendency to cling to an attitude that because of that, it's conceit, isn't it? My teacher, because what I think, he's my teacher and I think he's the best, that he is absolutely the best. Report an error in the passage at 25:04
25:34 It is all caught up with the self-view and assumptions that are conditioned into the mind before we are really awakened or aware of our own mind and how it is conditioned. So even in a traditional form whose aim is to free the mind from attachment, one has to be constantly aware of attaching, even to a view about non-attachment. Report an error in the passage at 25:34
26:06 Luang Por Chah taught non-attachment. But then it was easy to attach to the idea that our teacher was somehow better than the rest because he taught non-attachment. Report an error in the passage at 26:06
26:21 Of course Report an error in the passage at 26:21
26:27 they all teach non-attachment, but one tends to think that one's own. In that early stage of my monastic life, I tended to assume that the others weren't. weren't quite as thorough in the process as my teacher. Report an error in the passage at 26:27
26:46 But then that kind of attachment also as a result is suffering. Something in you feels anxious and worried and gets very upset. If somebody criticizes your teacher or says that there's a better teacher or you can feel very defensive, very angry, very threatened. Report an error in the passage at 26:46
27:13 If you're attached to a teacher or a tradition, then one tends to suffer when it's criticized or threatened in any way. So those are the signs to watch when that which threatens you, that which arouses anger and fear, worry and anxiety, it's not because what you're attached to. Report an error in the passage at 27:13
27:42 Anything wrong with that? It's the attachment itself. Report an error in the passage at 27:42
27:48 It's the upādāna, in the Pāli word upādāna. And this is where the Buddha is so brilliant in his teaching, is pointing to this upādāna, this attaching to even, attaching to the Buddha, attaching to views about dharma, attaching to vinaya, attaching to tradition. It's not that the tradition... Anything's wrong with the tradition or with Ajahn Chah or with the Vinaya discipline or with the dharma teachings. Report an error in the passage at 27:48
28:24 But if we're not careful, we also tend to assume that maybe when we see our attachment, we have to get rid of the tradition. Like people have asked me, they say, well, you've been a monk 25 years now, so you're probably very much attached to being a monk. Report an error in the passage at 28:24
28:47 And to prove that you're not attached, you should disrobe, as some monks have been doing this past year. And Report an error in the passage at 28:47
29:07 so to prove that I'm not attached, I could... But that's not the point. It's not something you prove. It's something you observe. Report an error in the passage at 29:07
29:17 Attachment and non-attachment are something in your mind. It has nothing to do with whether you're wearing a robe or not. Report an error in the passage at 29:17
29:28 Now, if I disrobe to prove to you that I'm not attached to being a monk, then I'm obviously attached to the idea that I've got to prove something to you, which Report an error in the passage at 29:28
29:46 I think is probably more, you know, I'd rather be attached, I think, to the tradition than to worrying about trying to prove to you that I'm not attached. Report an error in the passage at 29:46
30:00 Now, tradition, say, in Theravāda Buddhist tradition, Or the forest tradition. We say the forest tradition of Northeast Thailand. Some people call it Ajahn Chah tradition, Thai tradition, Theravāda tradition. We tend to regard almost anything as a tradition. And a tradition actually means something that's handed down. Report an error in the passage at 30:00
30:27 A tradition is the Buddha established the dharma teachings. He established dhamma vinaya. Before he died, 2,535 years ago, he established the conventions, the discipline, the teachings. So he was the founder of the tradition. And then the tradition is handed down. So they say in Theravāda tradition, we look directly to the Buddha in a direct way. Report an error in the passage at 30:27
31:05 The lineage coming from Gautama the Buddha. This is the attitude of a Theravadan tradition. Other Buddhist traditions oftentimes look to teachers who came after the Lord Buddha and oftentimes feel very much aligned with various teachers who taught various ways after the Lord Buddha. But in Theravāda school, very much, keeps to this sense of a direct lineage with the Gautama, the Buddha, by the emphasis on the investigation, understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the monastic discipline, the Vinaya. Report an error in the passage at 31:05
31:54 And so, in some ways, it's a very conservative tradition. Theravāda Buddhism is an extremely conservative form of Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 31:54
32:05 You have now in the West, All kinds of more kind of swinging and contemporary experiments on Buddhist themes and Buddhist ideas. And there's all possibilities. One can throw out, some people say, well, the Vinaya is totally unnecessary. We'll get rid of that. Other people... Buddhist meditation is the only thing. We don't need any of those ceremonies. And some people have very strong views against Buddha images, having Buddha images. Report an error in the passage at 32:05
32:49 Or some people just want to have dharma without Buddha. Or people interpret saṅgha in all kinds of various ways, from kind of mythical general attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 32:49
33:05 To very precise, our Saṅgha, which is a kind of cultish, select view of Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 33:05
33:17 And people have been very critical of Theravāda Buddhism. Other Buddhists can be very critical of it because it tends to be like it's really very much attached to old-fashioned customs or traditions, Asian attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 33:17
33:39 Many of us trained in Thailand, we're very attached to Thai Buddhism or Thailand. We get just the relationship of monks to nuns, the fact that we don't have bhikkhuni order or that our nuns are 10 % nuns rather than bhikkhunis or people will be very critical of Thai Buddhism because of The nun in Thailand is only an eight precept lay woman. Doesn't really even have the status of being a nun or having even a samana. Report an error in the passage at 33:39
34:23 They're more or less a lay woman who keeps eight precepts. And so there's plenty to criticize in our tradition. And oftentimes one gets... Report an error in the passage at 34:23
34:53 that way, that it is, it tries to keep very much within the boundaries that were established as we understand them through the scriptures, the Tripitaka. Report an error in the passage at 34:53
35:07 And the interpretations that have come from that, as we find in countries like Sri Lanka or Thailand, Cambodia, that this tradition we use not to just to try to preserve an archaic Asian tradition or try to take an exotic and very ancient tradition and try to... Report an error in the passage at 35:07
35:37 existed before that's not that's not what we're trying to do what I found most helpful and useful for me in my own Report an error in the passage at 35:37
35:51 life is among and through meditation is to have a very clear traditional form was down to me that is not something That I am picking and choosing and just selecting the bits and pieces that I like or that I wholeheartedly think is absolutely the best. One thing about the tradition itself is that one of the important reflective possibilities in it is that it helps you to accept and to live within the constraints Report an error in the passage at 35:51
36:35 Of many things that you particularly don't like or even want to resist or don't agree with. Now basically, it's based on morality. So that, say, no matter what your criticisms might be against the Theravāda tradition, its foundation is moral rights. Everybody has moral rights. Report an error in the passage at 36:35
37:07 And this is an important thing to consider because there's these scandals that go around in modern Buddhist circles where gurus and teachers and so forth do not Report an error in the passage at 37:07
37:24 their students or disciples about their moral rights and therefore feel that they can exploit them in some ways, advantage in in some some way ways. or... of people's devotion, love, and respect by using them for one's own, say, lust or pleasure. So that one hears various scandals and disillusionments that come from not informing everyone that they do have equal rights on the moral plane. Report an error in the passage at 37:24
38:04 Even the most senior, Monk, how advanced he might be or how wise or respected or adored that monk might be, he has no right to ask anyone to commit an immoral act. Report an error in the passage at 38:04
38:26 And if he does, then our duty is to say, you have no right to ask me to do that. Report an error in the passage at 38:26
38:38 So the moral rights are the important ones. We have to stand up for our moral rights and not just be pushed around by the impressiveness of a teacher or the power or the charisma, the charm that various individuals have or even the seeming reasonableness of it. Sometimes things can be explained in ways that sound very reasonable. Report an error in the passage at 38:38
39:09 and meaningful and more kind of tender and compassionate. Morality sometimes sounds harsh and hard and narrow-minded and it can seem even insensitive and cruel if presented in various ways. But what I'm saying is that it's important for humanity To begin to awaken to the rights that they need to stand up for, which they need to appreciate and respect in themselves, because then they can respect themselves, and then they're not going to be just helpless victims of deluded leaders, teachers, gurus, or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 39:09
40:06 A tradition in its forms, Say the monastic form of Theravāda is a very, it's a limited, it's a renunciate form. So you're constantly kind of letting go of things or your ability to do what you want, to follow your impulses, to follow the conditioning that you have from your cultural background, you have to restrain it and in order to operate within the Within the prescriptions of the restraint of our form. And this is done not just through blind conformity and it can't be done through, it doesn't work if you're just blindly conforming or suppressing your feelings, but it's a deliberate use of restraint in order to see those outgoing impulses, the impulsivity. Report an error in the passage at 40:06
41:08 The conditioning of your mind, your emotional nature, all the things, the wild tendencies, the childishness, the laziness, the greediness, the anger, all these things will manifest into our consciousness if we let them. But our agreement is to stay within the prescribed restraints. Report an error in the passage at 41:08
41:40 And learn to accept and be content with living within that form. Report an error in the passage at 41:40
41:50 And of course, it's easy to say, but discontentment is a constant human kind of agitation. But if you really are practicing and in the right way, then more and more you feel a sense of being at ease and content within. The Narrow Confines of a Monastic Discipline Report an error in the passage at 41:50
42:14 than being oppressive and suffocating, you feel a sense of just being at ease with a life that is increasingly simple uncomplicated. Report an error in the passage at 42:14
42:29 impeccable, because Buddhist monastic discipline is a high level of impeccability. Your speech, what you do, how you relate, the opportunity. Report an error in the passage at 42:29
42:44 life are such that you to feel at ease with just the cumulative life of not making heavy karmic actions. Report an error in the passage at 42:44
43:02 more and more you relinquish and let go of habits that are unskillful and cause yourself guilt and remorse and pain and not to mention The people around you. Report an error in the passage at 43:02
43:19 So then, in the end, you end up with, say, the ideal of the Arahant, the realization of Arahantship, which I leave up to you to discover what that's like. But what it does is one that is here and now, completely with the flow of one's conscious experience. It's ultimate liberation. And yet, it might look like, I mean, it seems, on the theoretical level of, A bhikkhu discipline, it looks like a kind of oppressive restriction of your life. You can't do this and you can't do that and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 43:19
44:06 Where, let's say, as a realization, one, the kind of joy of living a mindful life is that we realize there's nothing to worry about and you're quite content with very little. And you're no longer... Looking around discontentedly, feeling envious or jealous or angry or upset, or if these emotions do arise, you know how to resolve them. Report an error in the passage at 44:06
44:35 You know how to let them go and not suppress and not indulge in them. So to me, the traditional form, the one man that was here last week said, Ajahn Sumedho, you're more You're more orthodox than the Pope. I Report an error in the passage at 44:35
45:07 never thought of myself like that. It must look like the kind of Buddhist monasticism. Sometimes one feels that one's kind of adapted a little too freely. When you get these Thai monks coming here from... who live in the very strict forest monasteries, you know, they're even more, they have more kind of, they're more orthodox than me, not to mention the Pope. Report an error in the passage at 45:07
45:48 But this is, one is recognizing how to adapt, how to use a tradition, bring a tradition into a A society where that tradition has never really had any influence and how to bring it into some realistic form so that it works, yet without throwing away the traditional side of it. How to adapt, how to accept the influences of, say, a British culture so that you're not just trying to To take the cultural side of Thailand and trying to impose it upon European people, which of course they're not going to stand for. Report an error in the passage at 45:48
46:46 You've got to respect the good things in the countries you're living in and learn how to incorporate those within that tradition that you have. Because the actual traditional form of Dhamma Vinaya It's not Thai or Sri Lankan or Asian. It is a tool that Report an error in the passage at 46:46
47:22 is used so that wherever the dharma is taught and practiced, those existing traditions, those cultural forms are incorporated into it so that you're not trying to... To convert people into a different culture, but try to use the dharma teachings to awaken those who have only a little dust in their eyes. Report an error in the passage at 47:22
47:56 Or like here in Britain, one feels that there are many people who are very ripe for awakening. In the 15 years that I've lived here, I've witnessed it myself, the amount of interest and people. People willing to commit themselves to practice of meditation or to monastic life or to meditation retreats or their own practice as lay people is quite impressive. Report an error in the passage at 47:56
48:29 It's not that this traditional form and the teaching of the Buddha is something that no one... Report an error in the passage at 48:29
48:47 the four here in England of our monasteries, I think all the Buddhist monasteries are well supported. There are an increasing amount now, Tibetan and different Zen groups and so forth, and in continental Europe. Report an error in the passage at 48:47
49:07 Australia, New Zealand. Report an error in the passage at 49:07
49:17 Also, I feel in Venerable Amaro's now in California, he'll be back next month, and there's a lot of interest because in California they have, they're great at all the kind of variations on themes, and the one thing they don't have any great feeling for yet is tradition. Usually the Buddhists, American Buddhists tend to ...to look down on tradition and have very strong views about, you know, American Buddhism and what Americans need, what Americans want. Report an error in the passage at 49:17
50:00 And so Venerable Amar and I both agreed that if we're going to ever do anything in the States, we're going to be more conservative, more orthodox than Report an error in the passage at 50:00
50:19 even the British. Report an error in the passage at 50:19
50:27 And not because of stubbornness, but because... We realize that that is something that will help them, that will be a gift to the people there, those who will see its value, will appreciate that. Because anything that helps us to reflect our own opinionated attitudes, our own conceit, in the long run, even though we have to sometimes look at things that are very painful, Report an error in the passage at 50:27
51:01 Very threatening. That's good for us when we start looking at things that our own kind of inner fear or our own conceitedness. Report an error in the passage at 51:01
51:15 Because I see, just from my own experience as an American living within a tradition for a number of years, it's exposed that basic conditioning of the kind of assumptions. about oneself about one's country in that sense of being better and I never thought of myself as a conceited person really because my self image was that I was not conceited or arrogant and I didn't want to be I didn't want to be someone like that I detested arrogance whenever I saw somebody acting arrogant or supercilious I really I found that quite contemptible. But there are a lot of, there's still a lot of maybe unresolved, unrecognized assumptions in one's own, conditioned into one's own mind that you don't know about until you have to start really looking more closely at the sense of your own self-importance, the sense of your own The views and attitudes and feelings you have as giving them great significance and believing in those particular feelings and empowering them, we begin to see the suffering. Report an error in the passage at 51:15
52:47 So in the long run, even though I've not found monastic life all that easy, Certainly you go through various stages and various forms of liking and disliking and being inspired and being disillusioned, being bored with it. It's all part of the process of observing, witnessing, reflecting on what arises, ceases. Report an error in the passage at 52:47
53:21 And if you keep to that determination to witness and observe and acknowledge that, then... More and more you realize a sense of contentment with being, with Report an error in the passage at 53:21
53:39 just being alive and breathing, and that compulsive need to prove yourself or do something or get something or get rid of something or change something, that is seen as something to let go of, to relinquish and abandon, rather than something to follow. Report an error in the passage at 53:39
54:03 So I think in religious traditions, because I have used this one, this is the one that I know, that I've used, so I can speak from experience. But also I see religions, many of the other religions now are sometimes very confused because it's so easy to be intimidated by modern values and try to kind of Not have the confidence to use a tradition, but to try to adapt it and change it to please everyone, make it what everyone, what you think everyone wants. Report an error in the passage at 54:03
54:45 And in the end, you end up with a kind of pallid thing that doesn't really, isn't of much use to anyone. If you're just trying to please everyone. Report an error in the passage at 54:45
55:03 But if you're not, the opposite is where you're You're being too rigid and you're just trying to convert and make everyone conform is a tyranny, using tradition to tyrannize people, threaten them. You're going to be reborn as a toad in the next life unless you, maybe a swarm of midges, some dreadful reptile, if you do something bad. Report an error in the passage at 55:03
55:35 So it's not a kind of tyranny. Nor is it a compromising tradition to where it has no sharpness, no edge to it. It's merely kind of a flat, bland, meaningless, amorphous thing. But using tradition with mindfulness, with wisdom, then tradition does have a tremendous practical ability in our meditative life. Report an error in the passage at 55:35
56:11 reflect and to observe subtle forms of self-view, conceit, fears, and mental states. Report an error in the passage at 56:11
56:25 I've been speaking for one hour and will stop at this point in which you can have a break have a cup of tea and then in about 15-20 minutes those who are If you are so interested, you can sit down again and we can have a dharma discussion. Report an error in the passage at 56:25
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Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati